Why Makes Little Difference
by smallearthcat
Summary: Harry wonders, sometimes, why he's even travelling with the Doctor. Four/Harry slash.


Harry Sullivan is not an idiot, nor an imbecile, nor any other similar word the Doctor can come up with. Intellectually, he knows this, but the hell of it is that it's difficult not to believe the Doctor when he makes a pronouncement. Harry graduated top of his class, was recruited specially for UNIT, and was assigned the care of not just any alien, but the Doctor himself.

And yet, from the moment the Doctor had awoken in his care, Harry has been hopelessly off-balance. The Doctor can be very confusing at times, but not generally because Harry lacks the ability understand at least some of the things he says. If the Doctor would just take the time to explain what he's talking about once in awhile, Harry knows he wouldn't feel nearly so lost.

Even Sarah's presence doesn't really help on that score. She never seems to know any more than he does, but the rapport she has with the Doctor is something he knows he'll never be able to touch. He wants not to care so much about that or feeling like the idiot he knows he's not, but it's difficult. The thing is that people believe in the Doctor's pronouncements because he inspires such an unfailing devotion in both those who love and hate him, and Harry is no exception.

The fact of the matter is that Harry doesn't even have the slightest idea why the Doctor brought him into the TARDIS in the first place. On good days, he thinks maybe the Doctor saw something in him, some quality that was appealing, that made him someone the Doctor wanted to share his world with. On bad days, Harry suspects that his life is some cosmic misadventure with the Doctor at the helm, laughing as he steers Harry into one unfortunate situation after another.

It isn't until the bad days begin to outnumber the good days that Harry starts to think he should seriously consider just going back home, sharing some of what he's learned with UNIT, and settling back into life as a regular doctor. Well, what passes for a regular doctor in an organisation whose purpose is to deal with alien threats to Earth, anyway.

It's too bad, really, because this is the most excitement he's had in awhile, and life on the move actually seems to agree with him. Sure, there's a lot of running for his life, but that's generally outweighed by the calmer times when the Doctor shows them the wonders of the universe. Those are the times Harry loves best.

Sarah values the down time as well, he knows, but in a different way. Between bouts of saving planets and trying not to get killed, she tends to prefer spending her time in pursuit of relaxation. She loves anywhere they go that she can lie on a beach or spend time people-watching.

Harry, however, prefers the sights; the tallest mountain on a planet with an unpronounceable name that he and the Doctor spend the day hiking, the newly forming galaxy that they watch for hours while the Doctor tells colourful tales of all of the different planets within that he's visited there in the future.

And maybe that's why the Doctor wanted him along, though how he'd have known Harry would share his desire to see the universe, Harry can't fathom. If anyone could have guessed, though, it'd be the Doctor.

That day, they stop on one of Jupiter's moons, and the Doctor produces space suits that will allow them to go out on its surface. Harry figures he can stay another day.

It actually isn't until some time later – when Harry, through no fault of his own, gets his leg caught in a giant clam – that he decides once and for all that he really is going to go home at the first opportunity. The Doctor rescues him, of course, but the rescue once again comes with commentary on the state of his intelligence, and that's the last straw.

Sarah never gets that from the Doctor – not that she deserves to; she's no slouch in the intelligence department, either – and Harry is tired of the disparity, tired of being around someone who obviously has such a poor opinion of him. He doesn't say anything immediately, seeing as that would only give way to questions he doesn't want to answer. No, instead he waits until they find themselves on 1970s Earth again, and when the Doctor and Sarah move toward the TARDIS at the end of their adventure, Harry just stays back.

Sarah actually tries to get him to come with them, but she was never really the problem, and good friend or not, he can't see himself staying on the TARDIS for her sake. Besides, she and the Doctor will get along just fine without him. What Harry really doesn't expect is that the Doctor will care much one way or the other about what he does, but that turns out to be a completely false assumption.

Instead of following Sarah into the TARDIS, the Doctor pulls him aside. "Are you sure you won't reconsider? Sarah will miss you dreadfully." Harry frowns, ready to protest that that doesn't matter, even if it is true, but the Doctor cuts him off. "And there's a very slight possibility that I would miss you dreadfully, as well."

Harry feels like an idiot now, struck dumb by the very idea; no matter how he'd felt they'd connected sometimes, the possibility that the Doctor might actually miss him enough to want him to stay hadn't seriously crossed his mind. He's forced to consider it now, however, because the Doctor looks nearly as serious as he does right before he tells them to run.

"Well, I- that is, I...alright."

Harry doesn't know what else to say, can't imagine why the Doctor missing him is what makes the difference in his desire to stay on Earth, but it's rather inescapably true. The Doctor smiles and ushers Harry back into the TARDIS with a hand at the small of his back. It feels strange to be led by the Doctor like that, but Harry is enough used to those hands shoving at his shoulders to get him to move more quickly that it's not really worth worth a second thought.

Sarah grins when she sees them, and Harry isn't expecting the hug she rushes over to give him. Even less expected is the sense of loss he feels when the Doctor's hand drops away to allow her arms to wrap around the back of his neck.

Harry isn't entirely certain if things will be different now that he's agreed to stay on with them, but whatever he might have expected, he's sure, wouldn't have been anything like what actually does happen.

Their next stop is a planet with a pretty sizable population and a wealth of hospitals that couldn't possibly all be necessary. Only, it seems they are, and from what they see of the general populace, he'd never guess that so many of them are that ill.

The Doctor's got that look in his eye, the one that says something fishy is going on here, and they're going to get to the bottom of it. They spend days there, digging around stealthily and to no avail, before Harry finally becomes fed up with the situation and walks in the front door of the nearest hospital. He tells them he's a doctor and asks if he can help in any way. They agree immediately, and he sits in with one of their doctors while the Doctor and Sarah snoop around further.

The funny thing is that it takes maybe three patients before he works out what's going on. Any check-ups are very obviously superfluous, and the charts all indicate long-term bacterial infections. Every one of the patients receives an injection and is sent on their way, told to come back the next day.

"What are you prescribing for your patients?" Harry asks, and is unsurprised to find that it's a rather ineffective antibiotic.

He grabs a sheet of paper, writes down a formula and a list of ingredients, and hands it over. One consultation becomes two, becomes the entire staff of the hospital's doctors, and they're all exclaiming over the possibilities of penicillin. It's easy enough to slip out in the ensuing chaos, and the Doctor and Sarah are waiting for him in the hall.

The Doctor is grinning widely, and something about the look on his face tells Harry that he's had a hand in this all along. He doesn't want to ask in front of Sarah, so he waits until they're back aboard the TARDIS and Sarah has gone to her room to lie down.

"You knew what was going on the whole time, didn't you?"

"Did I?" The Doctor plays at confusion very well, but Harry isn't fooled.

"Of course you must have; I had it worked it out within an hour of seeing an actual patient, and you can't expect me to believe you weren't able to work it out as well."

"Well, yes, but you still did very well."

The Doctor pats his shoulder and grins, and Harry has a moment of disconnect where he realises that the Doctor had actually given him the chance to solve the problem this time. Not only that, but then a _compliment_ on a job well done.

"Ah, right. Thanks." After an awkward moment, the Doctor turns to the TARDIS console, and Harry beats a hasty retreat to his room.

Harry can't quite put his finger on exactly what it is, but something changes after that. The Doctor isn't always polite, but he's not disparaging anymore, and Harry never wonders why the Doctor keeps him around. Well, that last isn't entirely true, because instead of wondering why the Doctor keeps someone he finds stupid around, Harry wonders why the Doctor wanted to keep him around badly enough to ask him to stay. It's not an ever-present thought, but when things slow down, it tends to make its way to the forefront of his mind.

Like one night, when he can't seem to fall asleep and has settled in the kitchen with a cup of tea in an effort to wind down enough to sleep. The Doctor appears, almost inevitably, and Harry isn't sure what to do. All he wants is to be able to sleep, he's that tired, but he knows there's no sense in going back to bed yet, not when he's got things on his mind.

The Doctor doesn't say anything, puttering around preparing his own cup of tea, and just asking the Doctor why he'd wanted Harry to stay suddenly seems like a wonderful idea. At least then maybe he'll be able to let it go and get some sleep.

"Why did you ask me to continue travelling with you?"

The Doctor sits across the table from him, looking, once again, uncharacteristically serious. "Sarah and I would have missed you."

It's an answer, but not a satisfying one, because Harry already knew that. In any case, it doesn't explain specifically why the Doctor wanted him to stay. "Well yes, and I would have missed you both as well, but there always seems to be something more to your reasoning. There's something more to _this_."

The Doctor stares at him intently, and Harry has the urge to tell the Doctor not to answer the question (because he really has no idea what the answer will be, and maybe he won't _want_ to know), but he says nothing.

"I find that I've grown quite...fond of you, Harry." Harry opens his mouth, ready to try prying some more, but the Doctor stops him with an emphatic, "Quite _fond_."

The Doctor sits back after that, apparently content to let Harry ponder the meaning of his words. Harry has no doubt that this is the Doctor's actual reason, but the Doctor is being his usual frustrating self and trying to make his point without having to say it straight out.

It's an extremely annoying method of communication, but Harry wants to understand badly enough to try puzzling it out anyway. The maddening thing about it is that there seems to be nothing about the Doctor's words that isn't straightforward. The Doctor considers him a friend and didn't want him to leave, same as if it had been Sarah.

Only, definitely not the same as Sarah, because she's the Doctor's best friend, so he'd probably miss her more if she decided to leave. Harry glances at the Doctor, who looks vaguely uncomfortable, and he thinks for just a second that that's it, but it makes no sense, and he doesn't think the Doctor would tell him that even if it were true.

So okay, he'd probably miss them...differently, right? And of course the Doctor is fond of Sarah, but if perhaps he's _fond_ of Harry...oh. Harry swallows heavily, his mouth suddenly dry.

"When you said fond, you meant more than strictly friendly, didn't you?

"Ah, well yes, I might have."

The Doctor fiddles with his teacup, and Harry is unable to look away from him. Whatever he might have been able to come up with as a possibility for the Doctor's behavior, romantic feelings would never have come close to making the list. He doesn't know quite what to say and hides it behind finishing the last of his tea.

He's been in the Doctor's position in this kind of situation before (feelings for someone who might not feel the same way, might very well not when that someone's another man and that kind of thing just isn't _done_), so that part of it, at least, isn't a complete surprise. No, the surprise is that it's the Doctor, not only feeling that way, but _telling him_, when Harry never would have thought to consider it.

Harry watches the Doctor, who's begun cleaning up, quite likely as a diversion. It wouldn't be a hardship, thinking of the Doctor that way; even when he was insulting more often than not, the Doctor had still been an amazing man. Even then, Harry had wanted to stay, wanted things to be like they were at their best, the two of them taking in everything the universe had to offer.

It's easier, now, to understand why the Doctor had been so hard on him, because if he thinks of it in terms of the Doctor caring for him a great deal, well, any harshness had pretty much always come when he'd managed to get himself into enough trouble to need saving. It's actually rather touching, not that he would ever tell the Doctor that, because the last thing he wants is a relapse into that kind of behavior.

Harry's glad that the Doctor gave him some space to think it through, but thinking too long will inevitably turn into second-guessing himself and the situation, and he has no intention of letting that happen.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor very nearly drops the saucer he's holding, but instead he merely fumbles it and catches it before it falls. Harry suppresses a grin, because while it's flattering that the Doctor is so out of sorts over him, it's obviously taken a lot for the Doctor to say as much as he has.

"Yes, Harry?" The Doctor turns toward him, but as Harry had got up to put his cup in the sink, this puts them mere inches away from each other.

"I think perhaps you should put this down," Harry takes the saucer from the Doctor and sets it on the counter, "and kiss me now."

The Doctor's eyes go wide, and Harry doesn't even bother waiting, just puts his hands on either side of the Doctor's face and pulls him in. A little more warning might have helped, because the kiss is sloppier than Harry might have hoped for, but it still manages to feel better than he could have imagined. They cling to each other for awhile, neither of them really wanting to break the kiss and let go. When Harry finally forces himself to pull away, the Doctor is flushed, mussed from roaming hands, and Harry is sure he doesn't look much better.

"How very unexpected of you," the Doctor finally says, brushing his thumb over his lower lip.

Harry can't stop the chuckle that escapes, and the Doctor grins his widest grin in return. "Perhaps it was. It should be less unexpected next time, though, yes?" The Doctor's grin softens into a fonder sort of smile, and though Harry wants nothing more than to kiss him again right now, he doesn't. "I suppose I should be off to bed. Goodness knows what kind of trouble you'll get us into tomorrow, and I'd like to be prepared."

The Doctor nods, looking like he'd rather not see Harry go, either. "Goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight, Doctor."

Although Harry does go straight to bed, sleep is a long time in coming, with his mind still full of the Doctor.


End file.
